Chapter Two
WREN
The sun bled out behind the sea, streaking the clouds in copper and rose. The air smelled of salt and smoke, of endings pretending to be beginnings.
Drakens gathered along the dark sand in a wide crescent, their wings folded tight, scales glinting with the last of the day’s light. The body lay at the center of it all, wrapped in linen, resting on a pyre of driftwood and woven branches.
Seawitches had crawled up from the tide pools, curled at the edges of the tide, respectfully waiting with tails still wet and glistening. Meruse, the leader, stood on shore with us, eyes heavy, her wild red curls tamed in a plait today.
Air witches hovered overhead, dropping off earth witches on the ground next to us.
Many of them lived permanently on the island with us now, preferring peace over constantly dodging humans on the continent.
A few even found draken mates, and their half-human, half-draken children toddled around, beginning the next generation.
The fire witches were still nowhere to be found. They were either extinct or gone somewhere else. The bloodwitch survivors from the Overlord’s castle hovered here and there, keeping to the tree line.
No one spoke.
Even the waves seemed to hush as they rolled in, whispering over our feet like something listening.
I stood beside Benedict, his hand cold against mine. Kieran flanked my other side, a solid wall of quiet tension. Ronan lingered a few steps back, his gaze fixed on the horizon like he was trying to read the wind itself.
The fire wasn’t lit yet. Benedict wanted to speak first. He always did, when things were uncertain. He stepped forward and let his voice carry over the crowd.
“We found him this morning,” he said, each word measured, deliberate. “He is a draken, but not one of ours. His scales, his armor, his sigil, none match any bloodline we know. The sea brought him to us, and until we understand why, we will treat him as kin.”
A murmur rippled through the assembly.
Benedict’s gaze swept the crowd. “I know what you’re thinking. That he could have been a traitor, a soldier of the Overlord who crawled back once his master fell. But I don’t believe that. I believe he came from somewhere else.”
The words hung there, impossible and heavy.
“Somewhere alive. We have to consider the possibility that when Lyoness fell, drakens survived and were scattered. This draken could be a descendant of such a survivor. There could be other draken enclaves out there we do not know about.”
The crowd shifted uneasily. A few wings rustled. Someone whispered a prayer. Then the crowd exploded into excited cheers and shouts.
“Quiet!” Kieran said, his voice low but carrying like thunder. The sound cut through the noise and the muttering died.
Benedict nodded once to him, then looked at me.
He wanted me to step forward, to put a face to this impossible hope, to remind them what we had already survived.
I hated speeches. I hated how eyes clung to me as though I were something holy when I was still learning how to be anything at all, but I went anyway.
“Lyoness was meant to be our ending,” I said, “our last refuge, but maybe once again, it is a beginning.”
A few heads lifted.
“We’ve all dreamed of finding others like us,” I continued. “Mates we lost. Children who never grew up. If one made it here, then there could be more. We can fear that truth or we can meet it with open arms. I choose the latter. I would love to continue to reunite our people.”
Ronan’s eyes softened. Benedict’s jaw eased, just barely. Kieran’s fingers brushed mine, grounding me, but not everyone shared our calm.
From the far edge of the crowd, a voice called out. “And what if they come for you, Queen? What if they come to take Lyoness?”
“Then they will find we are not so easily taken,” Benedict said, voice calm but ringing with power as the torch burned in his hand. “We will protect our home. But we will not destroy the chance to know what else has survived this world. I will not rule through fear.”
Murmurs spread again, sharper now, fear clawing its way back to the surface.
Before I could speak, Benedict made an incision with a knife along the back of his arm, activating his blood magicks.
His skin glowed gold along his rune lines, running down into the ground as golden light spread out through the fault lines in the island, a physical representation of the powerful wards we’d set when we first came.
It pulsed once, then flickered and died.
No one seemed to notice, but Ronan tensed beside me, and Benedict’s nostrils flared in surprise. I would have to ask them about that later.
Benedict cut another bloodmagick rune along his throat, oh so delicately. Orange and red bloomed along his neck, and for a terrifying moment I thought he was bleeding. Ronan’s grip on my elbow steadied me.
Benedict held up a torch and breathed pure fire onto it. My jaw dropped.
“We used to be able to do that naturally,” Ronan whispered next to me. “As our dragon blood was diluted we had to resort to bloodmagicks to access our dragonfire.”
Oh, wow.
Once I had the baby, I wanted to do more bloodmagick rituals of my own. I was so far behind all the other drakens.
He looked at me again, and together we lowered our hands toward the pyre. My fire met his, gold twining with the red flicker that leapt from my fingers. The wood caught instantly, light rushing upward like the breath of gods. The linen burned clean, leaving the draken’s scaled body bathed in flame.
“STOP! LEAVE HIM ALONE!” My mates turned as one and put themselves in front of me as a woman’s voice screamed from above.
Astrid, the leader of the air witches, hovered in the air, dangling a woman ten feet from the ground. A snap of Astrid’s fingers and the fire extinguished.
We all studied the new witch, wriggling and fighting to be let out of Astrid’s grip.
Her skin was dark, her hair curly and decorated with bright jewels and feathers.
She was dressed in a mixture of a pirate blouse and a leather skirt, with leather boots and armed to the teeth. She reeked of bloodmagick.
I pressed a hand to my belly. The baby stirred again, a flutter like wings.
“I know,” I whispered. “I feel it too.”
“Found her approaching from the south, snatched her off her ship and left it hanging out at sea,” Astrid reported. “Meruse is awaiting orders on what to do with it. Big ship. Dark.”
Meruse poked her head out of the water a ways out, waving merrily.
“LEAVE MY SHIP ALONE! HAVEN’T YOU TAKEN ENOUGH FROM ME?” the new witch shrieked, trying to reach her weapons but unable to since Astrid dangled her from her arms.
The woman twisted and writhed, managing to land a kick on Astrid’s shin. She shrieked and dropped her to the sand. Kieran lunged forward to try and catch her before she hit the ground, but the strange witch wasn’t thankful.
“Don’t touch me!”
She whirled around and withdrew a blade, forcing Kieran to back away, his hands held up in apology.
Astrid landed on the ground with her silver hair and bright robes flying around her, teeth in a snarl.
She snapped her fingers and the strange woman fell to her knees, hands snapping around her back as if magickally bound.
Meruse emerged from the shore, tail smoothly splitting into two legs as she advanced toward the newcomer.
“Well, this answers a few questions,” Meruse said, advancing slowly.
Benedict raised an eyebrow. “Does it?”
Ronan’s head tilted to the side. “So that’s where the bloodwitches went.”
I shot a glance at the tree line where a few of the surviving bloodwitches had inched forward, curious among the crowd of other drakens. They shared this new witch’s coloring.
Astrid grinned, shooting Ronan a flirtatious wink. “Knew I always liked you.”
“For the rest of us—” Astrid grumbled.
“Plebians—” Ronan cut in cheekily, only to be forced to duck as Benedict swiped at him.
“This,” Astrid began, walking around the new witch as if she were an interesting specimen to observe, “is a bloodwitch. Just like the other survivors.”
“My name is Nerissa,” she spit out, glaring at us all.
“Do you know this draken?” Benedict asked her directly.
“Never mind that, do you know where the bloodwitches are?” Astrid asked. “Your actual clan? We have survivors here that would love to—”
“How did you know to come here?” Ronan inquired, unable to stop himself.
But Nerissa’s gaze went ashen as it landed on the body of the dead draken.
I shot a look at Astrid, who sighed, and released her invisible bonds on the bloodwitch. Nerissa cried out and raced to the body, draping herself over it and crying. “Nooooo! Who did it! WHO DID IT?”
“Who—”
I smacked Benedict on the arm to shut him up.
“She’s grieving.” I hissed at everyone. “Get back.”
The crowd gave me space as I approved the crying woman and the pyre, singed and half-burned. I approached slowly, even as Benedict growled in warning behind me.
“What’s his name?” I asked gently, slowly putting a hand on her shoulder.
Nerissa tensed and sniffed hard, lifting her head and turning to look at me through red eyes. “Anar.”
I nodded. “Your mate?” I whispered.
She bent in half as fresh sobs overtook her, her head shaking violently. Wiping her face, she faced the crowd in front of us. “My son.”